MacMurrough name

MacMurrough name — There's a running "joke" throughout the novel based on the MacMurrough name. Father Taylor refers to it as "a lodestar in the Irish firmament" (Ch 1.3). In greeting Eveline, he speaks of his "pleasure" in meeting "a scion of your famous name" (ibid). He assures her later (Ch 5.1) that her "name alone is worth its weight in gold".

It is true the name in Ireland is "imperishable, ineradicable, sempiternal" (Ch 1.3) – but precisely because it is reviled.
Dermot MacMurrough, 12th century king of Leinster (on whom Dermot James William MacMurrough, Eveline's father, is based) was the "traitor" who first invited the "English" to Ireland. And he gave the hand of his daughter, Aoife, to their leader, Strongbow.